Letter or a Layout

Parents love to receive letters and how much better it makes if letter is attached to a layout with pictures? It makes a much better statement. Well, here I replaced letter with blank cards, but that envelope is made to hold what my heart has to say...


The word GRATITUDE was cut out straight from the text patterned paper by Teresa Collins...

I just looove text paper. I often struggle with journaling and seeing text paper on a layout kind of makes it a part of a story for me.

Pink is one of my favorite colors to work with, and this collection by is awesome. Some of these papers have glitter on them others have text or a little distressed look.

Have to go now!

Pattern paper challenge

Sharing a page I did as a part of the challenge. Usually I tend to use monochromatic colors on a page and don't use a whole lot of different patterns on one page. Here I ignored what my inner voice was trying to dictate and used five different papers in one LO - that's a record.

Having some blockage for journaling lately. I will ask one of my kids to write a few words for this page. Well, if Alena writes it I might need another 8.5x11 page just for journaling. She doesn't know how to stop. :) I wonder where she got it from...

Summer don't go!

Can't believe that summer is almost over! I just found out today that there is only 9 days left before kids go back to school.

As soon as that hit me I grabbed a pen and went to make a "to do" list before summer vacations is over and it ended up to be a mile long. I feel like I lost a month somewhere...

Besides being so behind (I am behind most of the time anyway) want to highlight how great this summer was. Here are just some of our memories:

It was a good summer! Lots of great memories...

Painting

I've been using a lot of paint in my latest scrapbooking and my canvas is a little bigger then 12x12 and I'm not enjoying it as much as traditional scrapbooking...



Yeah, you don't realize how big your ceiling is until the day you have to paint it. And who said you should only use weights for exercise or weight training? Doesn't matter what you do around the house, as long as you get sweat running down your back - it all counts. At least I think so.



Why do I even complain when I have such a great help? These little hands get into everything and volunteer to add just a little bit more work anytime! My other daughter says - maybe she is the next famous designer.


Besides those little hands I do have some real help from other two pair of hands where the first ones reassembled entire chandelier after its being cleaned and the other ones captured all these memories on camera.

Million Red Roses

Hi. I came across this video on you tube and wanted to share it with you. This was one of the most popular songs in the history of our country. "Million red roses" performed by one of the most talented singers - Alla Pugacheva. I have this song on my MP3 player and listen to it when I go for a walk.

The other day Liana was listening to it, and when this song ended she totally refused to listen to other song and ordered more "millions".

If you never heard it before, I hope you will like it.

FIVE

Hello. I heard Stacy Jullian talk about this book on one of the Roundtable episodes and now I want to read this book. Very inspiring. I'm thinking about getting it next time I stop at Borders. Hope you will like this video too.

12x12 Layout

Hello friends! I didn't feel like working with my own pictures today, that's why I made a layout for my sister-in-law. We went on vacation together this year and I was the one to take these pictures for them. Cute couple with even cuter baby. I loved their matching outfits in white and blue and chose my colors for the page in the same color scheme.

Here is how it turned out:

And here is a close up look of a hand cut title. Yes, I'm dreaming about one of those machines that can cut titles for you, but for now it's all being done with hands and a pair of scissors...


I love Nic Howard's overlapping titles, so mine was pretty much inspired by hers.

I didn't know what to write here, and didn't want lo leave the page without jour5naling, so I just used journaling from one of my pages about a vacation, just changed it a bit for them.

Thanks for stopping by, and I'll see you soon!

Another pink

Very simple and quick page with pictures that waited their turn at least two years. Machine stitching is my new favorite technique. I start a page without any intention to do stitching and when I'm done I search for a spot to add at least a tiny little stitch or I stitch everything possible like it happened here on this page.

I don't think I'll ever get tired of pink. How can I with three girls in a house?

I love pages with standout titles but here again I don't have a definite title for the page - it's a part of embellishments.

My pick of the week

I love those roundtable episodes on Paperclipping.com. That is so much fun. Like different topics they talk about, people they have on the show, and information they provide. Oh, and Noel is so sweet. Anyway, each time they make their Pick of the Week, I think what would I have chosen? And the first thing that comes to my mind is the item I use every time I create, and I really apreciate it.

My pick of the week is Tombow adhesive tape runner. It is great. Don't know how I used to scrap without it. I heard that dots are better, but my craft stores don't have it. So, for me this is the best. My favorite tool right now.

I have a couple of layouts done, but no camera to take a picture of them. This week I get to experience what life is without a camera... Hopefully there will be another one pretty soon...

Ordinary day...

Today was a perfect, busy, ordinary day. And I really enjoyed it. Even though I still had remnants of cold, and our baby didn't have the best sleep at night, I still enjoyed it. It was the day when whole family was home. It was busy and noisy around here, but I felt blessed. It was beautiful windy spring day that felt a little like fall, and I love fall.

Today I had a privilege to listen to live music, performed by my oldest daughter, Yelena. Today I appreciated Suzanna's patience when her baby sister was messing up her hair. Today I enjoyed hearing Liana's baby talk, when she was pointing at a picture in a book and telling me what she sees. Today I felt lucky to have my husband work on house improvements. Today I was thankful for cool weather which was perfect for taking a walk. Today I was grateful that my children offered help while I was working on these Russian cookies (it seems like this family can not survive without sweets).


There wasn't a celebration here today, nothing special happened, but I felt blessed. Blessed to have a family. Blessed to enjoy another day that the Lord has made.

Count your blessings!

Week in the Life update

I really enjoy this journey called "A Week in a Life". Wanted to share just a few pictures that make up our life. Pictures that otherwise would've not happened if it wasn't for this project.

Pretty much every morning starts with this cup for me. Contents in it vary.

Kids leaving for school:

Bus stop in the morning.

This table is always occupied by something or someone, no matter how hard we try to keep it free of clutter.

This is what I found on a camera after my kids left for school. My daughter was so proud that she was able to take that cool picture like mom likes to do (with blurry background):

Laundry. This is a picture after laundry was done. (didn't want to document before):

Cousins watching their favorite Russian movie "Ny pogodi":

"Count every moment together as a gift" - just heard that phrase on the radio. And this is so true.

Camera problems

Could there be a "better" week to have your flash go dead then the week you are trying to capture your everyday life? Great.

No, I didn't give up, even though it makes things so much more complicated. I literally could not take any pictures inside of the house for three evenings, and not much came out today since it wasn't very bright outside. I didn't want to take camera back it to get fixed, because then I would be left without camera at all. Arrr...

On the brighter side, I have to agree with Ali, that during this time when we make ourselves grab a camera and take just another picture we might get across something like this:

...the connection between these two is incredible. Liana (the baby) will choose her older sister over me any time. This is one of those moments that I wanted to scrapbook about but didn't have picture. Now I do.

New layout

I did this one few weeks ago. Gathered images of our hometown from different sited, since I did'nt have any of my own and made collage. Turned them all black and white (originally was planning on mixing with my old photos of us...) I had this nostalgia about Krivoy Rog, school, childhood... for a while. And working on this layout helped a little. I do have another one on my desk almost done also childhood related. Will be back to share more.

Week in the Life

I am so excited to participate in project called "A week in the Life". I've read all the links referring that subject on Alis' blog. Today I was working on basic design and other little details for it. So far I have decided on:

- making it a 5.5 x 8.5 in size (made December Daily in a similar size and loved working with that canvas size)

- choosing blue as an accent color

- having a transparency for each day instead of devided page protectors (will adhere pictures on both sides, which will have simmilar effect)

-geting it bound at an office store, instead of rings this time (A.C Moore doesn't sell them anymore... made me mad.)

For my design inspiration I used one of the pages from Ali Edwards photo book on Shutterfly and worked it out so that my project will look similar. It was my favorite page in her book. By the way, I'm working on one of those photo albums to give it to my parents as a gift.

I want to keep it very simple. Would love to work with white pages for a change. Hope to share a little bit more soon. Can't wait to get started.

Just a card.

This is a card I did a while ago. Just thought I would share it here. I had to cover wedding gift in scrapbooking paper (I know!) to match the card.

Wedding colors were also pink and brown.